In Forces of Production , David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from relian

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问题     In Forces of Production , David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from reliance on skilled arti- sans to automation. Noble writes from a Marxist perspective, and his central argument is that management, in its decisions to automate, conspired against labor: the power that the skilled machin- ists wielded in the industry was intolerable to management. Noble fails to substantiate this claim, although his argument is impressive when he applies the Marxist concept of " de-skilling "—the use of technology to replace skilled laboi— to the automation of the machine-tool industry. In automating, the industry moved to computer-based, digitalized " numerical-control" (N/C) technolo- gy, rather than to artisan-generated "record-playback"(R/P)technology.
    Although both systems reduced reliance on skilled labor, Noble clearly prefers R/P, with its inherent acknowl- edgment of workers’ skills: unlike N/ C, its programs were produced not by engineers at their computers, but by skilled machinists, who recorded their own movements to "teach" machines to duplicate those movements. However, Noble’ s only evidence of conspiracy is
that, although the two approaches were roughly equal in technical merit, management chose N/C. From this he con- cludes that automation is undertaken not because efficiency demands it or scientific advances allow it, but because it is a tool in the ceaseless war of capitalists against labor.
The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

选项 A、reexamining a political position and defending its validity.
B、examining a management decision and defending its necessity.
C、analyzing a scholarly study and pointing out a central weakness.
D、explaining a trend in automation and warning about its dangers.
E、chronicling the history of an industry and criticizing its development.

答案C

解析 主题类型:A.“defending its validity”显然不符文章作者态度。B.同上。C.正确。分析一学术研究并指出其主要缺陷。符合作者对Noble的整体负评价。D.“warning about its dangers”是Noble做的事,作者不同意。E.给一工业历史编年,评论其发展。无。
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